Success is Mine, Finally! — V60 Drip Coffee

I couldn't leave this topic with the resounding failure that was my previous attempt at making some of these coffee drippers. That was the first time I'd ever made them, and in all honesty, I really did pursue form over function. You might recall that with these coffee drippers. Aesthetically quite interesting, yes, but the coffee, instead of going into the cup, clung onto the underside of the dripper and then flowed to the edge over the side of the mug. Initially, I thought it was just this piece that was affected, but then I noticed the cup on the left was also doing the same, as if you look carefully, you can see coffee seeping underneath it. If I'm being completely honest, I haven't had a failure this apparent for a long time, and thus I had to create this new video in order to rectify those terrible mistakes. The changes needed to make these actually function properly aren't huge. Their undersides need to be sharper and more defined, with walls that slope inward, directing the coffee and creating obstacles it can't cling onto or flow over. Whereas with these failures, as the surfaces were glazed, it curved a lot of those edges, which meant the coffee, as it dripped through those holes, could cling onto this surface, flow to the edge, and then drip over it. So, in my next iterations, I'm not going to glaze the undersides, and I'm also going to make this locating flange narrower, taller, and sharper, essentially creating a barrier that sits well within the cup when it's inserted, so that there's absolutely no possibility the coffee can spill over the sides of the cup. Here's a rough cross-section of what that change will look like, but I'll be making two kinds of drippers in this video. The first will have one simple hole like this, with a funnel portion on the underside that really directs it into the cup. I'm then also going to make another variant, with a much larger hole in the bottom, through which the actual coffee filter will protrude. This way, the coffee itself isn't actually dripping off any of the ceramic component, but from the paper filter itself that slots through this, and this is actually much more similar to the Hario V60 I have, and ultimately I think it's a slightly easier shape to produce, as the hole pierced through it is wider, and therefore it's not quite as a delicate shape to create. The other thing I want to do is slightly alter the shape of the underside of the dripper, with the walls on either side of the hole sort of sloping outward, like so, as I'm hoping this will encourage the coffee to drip, as opposed to cling to the top of the floor itself if it was, say, flat, or if it's sloped in the other direction. So, those are the changes I'm going to make, and with the addition of an unglazed underside, I really can't see how these variants could go wrong. So, I'll be starting at the beginning, but in this video I won't be spending so much time on each step. Thus, if you'd like to watch a far more detailed tutorial of how I throw the basic shapes of these, well, I'll leave a link to that on screen now, and in the description below, as ultimately throwing the actual shapes of these is sort of the easy part. It's the trimming of them thereafter, and how you do it, that's the more complex section. I'll be throwing these from about 750 grams of clay. This might be quite a lot for a shape like this, but I want to leave enough in the base in order for there to be enough material to trim the tall locating foot from. In short, I'd rather have too much material to work with, as compared to too little, which means I'd risk not actually being able to create the shape I'm after. I'll be throwing these on MDF backs, as due to the sort of complex shape of the drippers, they're very difficult forms to lift off with just your hands. Thus, by throwing them on these platforms, after the pots have been thrown, I can simply lift the wooden platform away with the piece held on top of it. When I throw these, I begin by centering the clay. This is a whole process in itself, but it's sort of like setting the foundations for the rest of the pot, which means if it's done poorly, you're going to have a more difficult time shaping the rest of the object. I flatten the clay into a low disc, and then I separate that into two parts, which I do by pressing a soaked sponge about halfway up that disc. The upper half becomes the funnel section, whereas the lower part becomes the supporting section that sits atop the cup, and it's this that's left purposefully thick, so there's ample material to trim a nice tall foot from. As for the walls, I draw them up nice and straight at about a 60 degree angle, which, if you didn't realise, is why it's called a Hario V60. I then insert this guide into the opening, the template of which I got from Joe Thompson of Old Forge Creations, who's another potter on YouTube you might already follow. He creates really interesting tutorials and covers topics that you won't really see on my channel, so I'll make sure to leave a link to his channel in the description of this video. Essentially, when inserted all the way up to the line I've drawn on the other side, it creates the perfect shape for a V60 dripper, taking into account the shrinkage, too. I then give the bottom portion a quick tidy up, but I try not to remove too much material at this stage, as it's simply going to be easier to do the final shaping of this pot once the entire thing has turned leather hard. I do one final check with the template, and then I lift the piece away without wiring it off, as that's something I'll do later after the clay has stiffened up, as due to the sort of irregular complex shapes these have, I want to try and keep them as centred and perfectly thrown as possible. Equally, at the same time, if there is any movement due to how thick these are in places, I should be able to fix it if they do warp or move a touch as they dry. So, I've thrown one with a step in its waist, as this is simply an aesthetic feature that you'll see a lot in my work, and then I've thrown two shapes that are slightly more conventional, with a straight funnel and a flat support. With the undersides of the previous batch I made, some of them were trimmed in such a way where they would only really fit a very specific shape of cup, whereas with these newer versions, they're going to be made with a supporting section that's wide enough so that it should be able to rest comfortably atop any mug, and I'll also trim them to have a vertical locating flange, the funnel on the underside, so to speak, that's far more narrow, which means it should therefore be able to fit inside any cup too. It's now the end of the day, so this is when I wire them through, although I reckon I could have waited a touch longer, as they were still slightly on the tacky side, and I think it's at this moment where I did actually accidentally impart some movement into them, and you can see that as the wire is dragged underneath it, as all the clay is still relatively wet, and the wire displaces some of that material, pushing it up, which causes the funnel section on top to sort of wiggle and lean slightly to one side. I left the pots uncovered overnight, and it's now the following morning, and the drippers have firmed up considerably, to the point where they can be flipped over onto their rims, which is important, as I need to get air circulating around the much thicker undersides these pieces have. I should have waited longer before flipping these, I think, as by removing them from the backs when the clay was still a touch on the soft side, I think these supportive sections have bent a little bit to either side. It's my fault for rushing the process, but like I mentioned previously, I just hope there's enough material in these so that I can sort of trim through the undulations to create a shape that's more true at the end. But for now, I'll wrap the funnels in plastic to stop them from drying out too much, and I'll come back to these in a couple of hours' time. The trimming comes next, and arguably that's where most of the work is. As well as these shapes are relatively well-defined at this stage, they have to be trimmed quite intensively before they become functional. And as you can see, they're certainly not sitting very flat, but I'm going to try my best to get rid of that undulation. I'll start by flipping them upside down and turning away some of that movement on the bottom. As the rim that's sitting on the wheel head is level, if I can make this mirror that, then once flipped back over, the piece should sit more evenly. It's certainly not perfect, but it's a fraction better. I brushed some slip onto the underside of this before setting it down, and through the process of tap-centering it, that's usually enough to hold the ceramic component in place as I turn it. As for the internal shapes of these, I just make sure they're smooth from top to bottom, and I trim their rims to a thinner, more delicate edge, simply to create a more refined object. When I made my previous batches of these, I didn't include any fluting or texture on the inside of the funnel, and I didn't really run into any issues with the hole in the bottom, say, clogging up and rendering the pour-over useless. I understand that it can help the coffee flow and escape the filter, but there are also lots of ceramic filters that you can buy that are just completely smooth on the inside. I guess as I was able to brew really delicious coffee with this sort of style previously, I'm not too concerned. It could be something I could test out with my next iterations, but for the time being, I just want to make sure the coffee goes into the damn cup. So that's where my focus will be in this video, and if I'm able to nail that down, well then, in future iterations, I'll explore changing the interior form. That's if you folks aren't sick of watching my coffee-related content, which I've been posting quite a lot of recently. The good news is that I was able to trim this wobbly shape into one that's now pretty even throughout. I begin by turning the outer edge of the underside just to make sure it's perfectly flat, then I can move on to hollowing out the clay from the center to create the drainage hole. This one is going to be the variant where the filter slots a considerable way through the hole, but first I'm going to designate the interior hollow of the actual footring portion itself, as once I've defined the rough boundaries, then it'll be easier to do the more precise trimming. As for any of the vertical walls I'm turning, I want to make sure they're all sloping inward, as this will create surfaces that the coffee will have a harder time clinging onto and flowing over. That's the inner boundary designated, so now I can begin trimming from the outside in to define the outer boundary of the footring. This, by the way, is a step you have to do carefully, as if your clay is too soft and you press too firmly on this overhanging portion, you can easily impart a really significant undulation into the horizontal supportive section, which, if certain parts of the wall are thin enough, could crack the piece, or it'll simply lead to an object that isn't even and doesn't sit flat atop the mug. I'm sure it'll still work functionally, but it may sit slightly skewed to one side. I'm also making sure that that corner, where the sloping floor and the wall of the locating flange meet, is very sharp. Essentially, I want to try and avoid trimming any kind of curve anywhere on the underside of these, as any sort of softer, rounded surface can encourage liquid to cling onto it and flow along it, whereas liquid, tea or coffee, flows off a sharp edge, it tends to drip off it. It's for the same reason that when I'm throwing and trimming teapot spouts, I make sure the lip of the spout is really sharp, as this way, when I cease pouring, the liquid splits on the edge and it's less likely a drip will develop, whereas with a really curved surface, as I stop pouring, the tea can just continue spilling out and pulling itself over that curved edge. I know a teapot and a coffee dripper aren't the same, but I'm sure there are some similar qualities in terms of fluid dynamics between them. This piece is really wobbly, so let's see what I can do to fix it. I thought I'd just flip it over and try and trim away some of the undulation that way, but I thought perhaps, as I haven't turned away anything yet, I could press the supporting section upward to see if it's possible to push the part that's actually wobbling back in line so that it spins more evenly. I'm not entirely sure if this worked, I think it nullified it a small amount, but I think turning the underside will have a greater effect. I then band some watery slip around the underside of the base, drop it onto the metal wheel head, tap center it, and at this moment I'm aiming to center the rim of the dripper, not the base portion, as there's enough clay in the bottom, which means I should be able to trim a fraction of that excess away so that it spins through, whereas comparatively, I don't think there's as much excess in the walls of the funnel itself, so I think it's better to remove it from the bottom instead of the walls. This step in the wall creates a slightly unusual shape on the interior surface, and when I tested these last, the filter sort of clung onto the upper regions, leaving a small gap beneath the filter on the lower half, which perhaps to some small degree sort of imitates what the ridges do on the inside of the funnel of the filter on the actual Hario V60 variant. And as you can see, I was able to trim away the excess on the bottom, carving the vessel back into a shape that's span really true, and without those terrible undulations you saw at the start. It's actually quite remarkable just what you can do, provided of course there's enough material in the object to work with. I think sharp trimmers really help with this process, as especially when I work closer to the outermost portion of the supportive horizontal part, the sharper my tools are, the less pressure I have to apply in order for them to remove material, whereas if the blade is dull, I have to apply much more pressure with it, and if I'm doing that around the outside of this, where the wall overhangs so much, there's a real chance I could destroy the piece if the overhanging portion suddenly breaks and falls down to one side. For this piece, to create the initial hole, I'm using a hole piercer, after which I can tidy up the surrounding area and trim the walls that lead away from the hole so they slope downward, like this, as I'm hoping that this will create a shape the coffee is less likely to cling onto and flow over. The one thing I really like about trimming these shapes is that due to their form, it's really easy to feel their cross section as I'm working, which is incredibly helpful, as throughout this process I'm turning away a lot of material, and thus being able to feel the cross section is of vital importance. As there's so much extra material in these objects, I need to know that I've trimmed away enough to make them feel light and balanced once finished, especially once covered in a thick layer of glaze, which always adds a surprising amount of weight to the object. This is a rule I tend to follow for all of the pots I make. There's this stage when you're first learning how to make pottery where, inevitably, as you aren't particularly good at shifting up all the weight and getting it evenly distributed, that your pots end up feeling bottom-heavy. Now, there are two reasons as to why this is a problem. The first is that if it's a pot you intend to fill up with liquid, say a jug or a teapot, if the piece is already very bottom-heavy before it's been filled up with liquid, then when it comes to actually using it, it can feel really cumbersome and actually quite difficult to use as it's so heavy. The other issue, and I think this one is more pressing, is that it defies your expectations, and not in a good way. If you go to lift something up and it's lighter than you expect, this can be quite surprising, and if it's something like glassware or ceramic, it makes you understand that the object is delicate and light and highly refined. Those are the connotations you link with it, at least. Whereas if there's a mug on a table, for instance, and there isn't any liquid in it, due to my life experience, I have a perception of what that mug should weigh when I pick it up, and suddenly if I go to pick it up and I feel all that weight in its bottom, it again defies my expectations but in a bad way, as it's heavier than I imagined, and the connotations we have with objects that are bottom-heavy are that they're unrefined and poorly made. Ultimately there's no justification for a piece feeling bottom-heavy, which I should note is very different from a pot feeling slightly heavy but completely balanced throughout. That's acceptable, as the weight has been distributed evenly throughout the piece. Whereas if a pot is bottom-heavy, it means there's essentially wasted material in it, and it implies that whoever created it hasn't managed to get the most out of their material. It's an interesting topic, and every thrower at the beginning of their career will start out making pots that feel this way, but as humans who experience certain crafted objects in our day-to-day lives, there are certain expectations we have, and a pot feeling bottom-heavy just isn't one of those. Thus, if someone's initial gut reaction is to exclaim that it's bottom-heavy, then you can't really blame them, as it's a similar thing to if you saw what you thought was a nice hot cup of tea, but then when you took a swig it was ice cold. Anyway, I dried these wrapped in plastic for a couple of days, just so they dried slowly, which should help to keep them nice and even. They're slightly unusual forms in terms of their cross-section, and I don't have much experience making them, so I dry them slowly so I can be more careful. After these drippers have turned completely bone dry, they can be packed into my electric kiln for a biscuit firing to 1000 degrees celsius. This turns fragile clay that disintegrates in water into a much harder material called ceramic, and the particles that make up this ceramic are partly fused together, which is why these pots will no longer disintegrate if left in water. Instead, when dipped into it, it'll suck it in like a sponge, which is fundamentally vital for the glazing process itself, as essentially what we call glaze is a whole bunch of different raw materials suspended in water. The glaze is mixed thoroughly, and then the pot is dipped into it. The absorbent stoneware draws in the moisture, the water, in the glaze, but the raw materials, the minerals and oxides and fluxes, well, their particles are too large and they can't be absorbed into the body, and thus they adhere into a layer that surrounds the outside of the pot, or at least anywhere where you haven't applied wax. Like I mentioned at the start of this video, I think one of the biggest problems with these was their glazed undersides. As it created a smooth rounded surface, the glaze was more likely to cling onto. Thus, this time I'm waxing the entirety of the underside, as I don't want any glaze covering any portion of the bottoms of these. The one place I wasn't sure if I should wax or not is the inside of the hole in the very center, but I figured it would be worth waxing, just to keep that bottom edge really crisp and sharp. This wax only takes a couple of minutes to dry. It also burns away entirely during the firing, which means the next step is simply clasping these with a pair of tongs and dunking them in glaze. This, thankfully, due to the hole is a relatively easy process, as the glaze just passes through it, but I tend to dip it, shake off as much of the excess, and then I hold it horizontally and give it a few more big shakes. This helps to even out the surface, and it also gets rid of the droplets that cover the bottom. Inevitably though, as the glazes I use are quite thick, there are always some droplets that cling onto the waxy surface below. It might not look like a very mindful process, but dipping pots and taking them out and how you move them thereafter really can affect how the glaze settles on the surface of the ceramic object. For instance, in the five or six seconds after the piece is taken out, the glaze on the surface is still a liquid settling, and so if you hold it simply in one orientation, the glaze will flow and settle on the lower half of whatever that position is. And this is why I shake the piece and keep it moving, as ideally I want the glaze that now coats the object to settle in as even a layer as possible. This following step happens the day after, normally, or essentially as soon as the layer of glaze is dried out. When this happens, the glaze itself becomes quite powdery and soft, and therefore it's easier to fettle back and smooth. The tong marks are of course wiped over and flattened, but a majority of the work in these is wiping clean the foot ring to get rid of any of the glaze residue left on the bottom. It's worth mentioning that none of the glaze that's removed during this process is lost. Instead, I have a basin of water for each respective glaze, which I work over, thus any dust that comes off settles into this, and it's also where I rinse the sponge throughout this process. Thus, over time, all of the glaze that's taken off the pots is saved, and it really does add up over a year or two, and it certainly beats just tipping it down the drain. The only thing I have to do before I add this back to the larger buckets of glaze these were dipped into is sieve it, as otherwise the glaze is filled with chunks of sponge and wax, which would then create inconsistencies on the pots that are eventually dipped into this. Making sure the hole is clear is a really important step, although this comes with absolutely terrible news, as this is the first bison tool that I've ever managed to break. Irritatingly, I just noticed that it was leaning to one side, as if just slightly bent, and as I pushed it back, the metal just snapped. I'm pretty sure it's tungsten carbide, which explains it, but it feels pretty awful losing a tool that's made by a craftsperson who's no longer with us. The most crucial parts to get right are wherever the clay body meets the glaze, around the edge of the supporting section, for example. Essentially, I just want a really neat, even line of glaze that doesn't undulate or waver, but stays really steady and clean in its circularity. The next step is packing these into my Roda KG340 gas kiln and reduction firing them. I speak about this firing process a lot during my other videos, but in this moment I want to talk about an analogy that links the process of brewing coffee in one of these drippers with actually firing the kiln itself. The way the kiln is fired is controlled by a whole heap of inputs. There's the gas pressure, the air pressure, the damper position, but there's also an additional air control on the burner itself, which is essentially a small valve that you can open or close. When firing gas kilns in the past, this small valve was something that we would often have to think about, but when I spoke to Roda, the manufacturers of this kiln, they said just set it halfway and leave it like that. As I'm already controlling the air through its primary system, adding another way of altering it just adds more complexity to the system of firing, whereas you can actually control the outcome with the three other components. And I suppose it made me think about brewing coffee, as in theory there are so many different variables that you can have control of. There's the temperature of the water, how finely the coffee has been ground, the angle of the funnel which the filter sits into, the type of filter you're using, the hole in the bottom of the dripper, whether there are ridges on the inside surface or not, how you pour the hot water itself, and of course where you actually get the coffee from. When you think about it like that, it's an insane amount of variables that go into producing a cup of coffee, so perhaps in some ways it's easier to just simplify the process if you can. If you set one or two of these parameters, it simplifies things as you're not trying to manage so many at one time, and I think it makes it easier perhaps to know what the changes you're making are actually doing. Anyhow, I reduction fired these pots to cone 10, which is about 1290 degrees celsius. It's a process that takes about eight hours, and then the kiln takes about 36 hours to cool down enough before it can be unpacked. At first glance it's a real success, and the pour overs, well, I think they look good. The glaze is nice and even across them, and I can't see any defects or cracks or anything like that. Overall my last couple of firings have been pretty good, apart from some sort of unwanted carbon trapping that seems to be affecting my white mugs only, which is utterly bizarre. The final practical step is sanding the undersides of these, the bare clay specifically. Yes, I did spend quite a lot of time burnishing the surface at the leather hard stage, but as grogged stoneware fires, the clay actually shrinks more than the pre-fired ceramic grog mixed into the clay body. Thus what was once nice and smooth is now coarse and rough, and as I don't really want these to scratch the rims of the pots they're given a quick sand using a fine diamond block, which means there's only one thing left to do, and that's test them. Just one more thing before I do that though. If these tests are successful, the next thing I want to do is produce a much larger batch of them to include in a future online shop restock. I'd love to know aesthetically which sorts of shapes you prefer, and whether you prefer the variants with a wider hole or a much smaller one. Or maybe I should just produce both, as from what I've gathered from conversations I've had, there seems to be a lot of personal preference when it comes to these pieces. So for these tests I'm going to be using one of my favourite coffees by Plot Roasting. It's really floral and fragrant, and tends to be quite punchy, or at least the way I brew it makes it so. I filmed the testing of the two variants over two days, and first I'm going to be testing out the dripper, i.e. the version with a much smaller hole, which will limit how quickly the coffee can pass through the filter. I place the Next, the coffee goes in, and then I pour about 40 or 50 grams worth of water over this. This saturates all the coffee, and I leave it like this until it stops dripping, after which I pour in the rest of the water in a couple of goes, working in rough spirals. And so far, so good. I can't see any spillage, and if I lift it up, the coffee is, thankfully, only dripping through the hole in the Much of the rest of the foot is wet, but that's just condensation from the steam hitting into it. The coffee passed through really well, actually, and it was only towards the end that it slowed down and began dripping more rhythmically, but it didn't take long to pass through. And so, the taste test. Although really, I know it's going to taste nice. This whole video is really a test of the mechanics of the dripper, not so much how the coffee tastes. And given how awful my first ever batch of these were, I just had to give this another go as soon as I could. I mean, I can't even use them as coffee drippers, so instead I might have to use them as tiny flower pots, or something like that. Anyhow, 3pm is my coffee time, and today that was with Ciro, who was huffing and puffing a little bit. I'm not sure why. This boy is a lap dog, if I've ever met one. And after our walk at lunchtime, all he wants to do, if I'm working or not, is be on my lap. He's with me two or three days a week, and on the days he's not, he's with my partner at home. But he's a really sweet little chap, although not when he acts like security when visitors knock on the door. It's now the following day, and it's three o'clock again, and this time we're testing the dripper with the much larger hole in the centre. It's also been a really long, strenuous day, so I'm using more coffee and more water, as I've got a kiln to pack, and I need the energy to get through it. By the way, the scoop I'm using is made by my dad. He creates spoons, but also makes lots of wooden sculpture, the likes of which you've probably never seen before. I'll leave a link to his Instagram in the description of this video. From an aesthetic point of view, I actually quite like how the filter pokes out from underneath it. I also think this wider hole will help the filter sit more comfortably within the dripper, as its apex isn't really being squashed, like happens with the very end with a small hole. That's the kettle leaking, okay, not the pour-over. And would you look at that? It's beautiful. There's no spillage to speak of, and the coffee drained through at a really good rate. I feel so much better knowing this is how they're made. And now that I understand how the mechanism works, which is really just so simple, with my next batch of these, provided I keep the underside and holes the same, I'm quite excited to how I can alter the shapes of these aesthetically. I even saw some nice frilly filters, which look far more fancy, so I'll have to get some of those next time, too. Thank you for coming on this coffee journey with me a second time. I'm sure there are still countless things I could improve upon, but to be honest with you, whenever I google how to do a V60 coffee, I'm sort of overwhelmed by the really exacting list and timings that people go to to brew their coffee. Sometimes it looks as complicated as firing my gas kiln, and I mean that, literally, whereas with coffee I tend to be a bit more intuitive. But with that said, I really enjoy this slightly more technical approach, as the coffee it produces really is delicious. Anyhow, thanks for tagging along and taking the time to watch, especially if you've made it all the way to the end. And as always, I'll see you next time.